St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-10-17
NEW YORK PUT TO BED.
How the City Goes to Sleep and
Wakes I'm AGain


The city wakes as does a sound
sleeper, slowly and one part at a time,
writes Julian Ralph from New York.
Its eyes open gradually, its hands and
feet are thrown about and finally it's
body sits up, but the operation is that
of one who hates to rise. There is a
rattle of wagons at first and then
fusilade of opening shutters. The
chimes of the horSe-car bells ring
out more and more frequently and the
loads of passengers grow rapidly in
bulk. The avenue on which the cars
run are fed by slender, broken threads
of people at o'clock. 1t is six before
the sidewalks begin to hum with foot
steps, and by you would imagine that
all the town was stirring, though only
twO-thirdS has in reality shed its multi
tudinOus nightgowns. The women,
whom all true men like to think of as
the favored Sex-the semi-wOrld whose
lot is comfort, protection and dedication
because it is the better half-the women
are tho first ones up and the ones to set
in motion the wheels of the vast ma
chinery of the metropolis.
saw card on the desk of clerk of
hotel the other day. 1t was headed
"Call hours" and the hours written
down its left hand side began at and
ended tb at Sso Opposite the guT9s
women" 'sporters,' schambermaids,"
''housekeeper," etc. If all New York
had call card the names opposite the
first numbers would be all feminine, like
this, $3.50, 5, 5:30-call the servant
girls. shop girls, factory girls, cooks,
scrub women. cash girls and chamber
maids" But whether it is in the
hotels or in the streets it is the women
that make the first hustle, hopping the
marble floors of the hotel Hobbies and
halls, sweeping the sidewalks, lighting
the fires, opening the doors and shut
tiers, and, finally. pouring into the ave-
nues and horse cars by the thousands,
with their eyes staring and CLASSY, and
their compilations colorless, with that
peculiar glaSSinesS and waXineSS women
reveal when they are first out of bed.
New York seems like city of women
at 6 in the morning. There are then
twenty-five of the tender sex to every
man in the streets and cars.
Fancy some sort of a catastrophe hap
pening to New York at O'Clock on any
morning, through which all who were
in bed were killed and all who were
awake and spending the night about
town or at work were saved. How
many survivors of the city's fate do you
suppose there would be? l think about
arithmetic and logic. Then the city is a
sIeepless one after all, you say. No;
not any more sleepless than the village
of Nantucket in the winter, or than any
other village in which there are one or
two constables, a nightly party of
dancers, a clerk kept up over his books,
a watcher at the bedside, and
one or two others sitting out the
night. Ten thousand out of
the population of New York is only one
in every 100 residents. If you include
the strangers in town every night, as
you must do, it is only one in $50. That
is equal to ten men up all night in
village of 1,S00 Inhabitants, so that New
York is above the average after all, but
not enough to be called SleepleSS. The
10000 is made up in this way: There
are about 1900 city and park policemen
on duty most of the night, about 1000
bakers at work till morning, about 375
in the headquarters of the gas, electric
light, steam heating and telegraph COM
panieS, about 1000 private watchmen in
buildings and in the streets, about 800
night hands at the fifteen
. ferries, about $50 men at
work on the two all-night elevated
roads and the three lines of horse cars
that are run necessarily, and, finally, it
takes TAO men to perform night service
in the hotels, 100 men to drive the night
cabs, about $50 men as clerks and
VOTERS in all night restaurants and
drug stores, and 500 in miscellaneous
places, like the bridge and hospitals, for
instance. The printers and newspaper
men don't work after 2 O'Clock, as a rule,
and they and the great bulk of urchins
who are drinking, dining late and bum
ming, are in bed then or soon afterward.
The all-night list as have set it forth,
foots up about $500 souls; Add to this
the year, and under 1900 stragglers Of
all kinds, and the total is less than
1000. The figures are, if anything is
miss with them, too high by 1000.